Chapter Twenty-Three – "Plan B"
Previously: To save Kendall and the rest of the Pine Valley Veterans, Zach has signed a confession/suicide note that will literally let Ethan get away with murder. Zach's murder. Other than Kendall, the only person at the party who seems suspicious of Ethan's true intent is Tad. His suspicions escalate when Kendall confirms his worst fears. None of them suspect that Lily has convinced Derek Frye that an all-out rescue is in order. But that is exactly what she's done.
More than anything, Lily wanted the squad car to go faster. Even though Derek's siren meant that all the awful red lights they were whizzing by couldn't stop them, the world seemed to her to be in slow motion.
"Don't worry," Jonathan tried to comfort her. "We'll get there in time, Lily. Everything will be okay. You'll see."
They were in a convoy of fifteen cars comprised of thirteen police cars, JR's Mercedes and NuGreenlee's Jeep Cherokee. Lily and Jonathan had piled in with Derek before he could stop them.
"Just don't get in my way," he muttered, eyes on the road ahead. "Don't try to do my job."
"I never would try that," Lily assured him. "All I want is for my Dad and Erica and everybody else to be safe. I don't want to do your job, Derek."
He tried not to smile. "Thank you, Lily. Jack will be very proud of you when he finds out you were the one who cracked this thing wide open."
"I hope so," Lily hoped. "Can't we go any faster?"
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"Can I ask you a question?" Kendall asked Ethan, who was continuing to study Zach's confession/suicide note.
"I never really loved you," Ethan replied. "It was sex and nothing more."
Kendall nodded. "Duly noted, but I have another question. Why did you use "You are My Sunshine"? Was that to throw false suspicion on Dixie?"
Ethan's blank look told Kendall that wasn't what Ethan ever had in mind.
"What are you talking about?" he asked her, completely puzzled.
"The song on the answering machines of the Vanished," Zach clarified while trying to come up with a way out for all of them, including Ethan.
"That was "This Land is My Land"," Ethan revealed. "Woody Guthrie. My favorite American song. I used it as a tribute to my adopted homeland. Now that you mention it though, it does sound like "You Are My Sunshine". Happy coincidence, I suppose."
But happy Kendall was not. She kept expecting Ryan to burst through the door guns blazing. Then she remembered that Ryan didn't have a gun. When she went inside the Big Black Building after Greenlee – the real Greenlee – had opened the door, she had expected Ryan to sneak around the back, find another way into the building and get the drop on Ethan. "With what?" she asked herself. "His boyish good looks?" Okay, maybe Ryan had phoned for help. Maybe Derek would think the original Greenlee appearing in a Big Black Building in the middle of the Dump was worth investigating. Maybe.
"You're supposed to let everybody go, Son," Zach was saying to Ethan.
Kendall followed his lead.
"You promised," she said.
"And I will," Ethan vowed. "After all, a promise is a promise. You know me. I never go back on my word. See that door to the left? That's where we're headed, Dad. You'll be amazed what's behind it." His voice dropped as he addressed his next remarks to his step-mother. "Kendall, if you prefer to continue living, you can stay right here and leave with the others in a few moments when I kick them out."
"Kick them out first, Son" Zach said evenly. "Then you and I can go anywhere you like."
Ethan signed and moved to the center of the ballroom. All the monitors went dark and the music stopped. Ethan cleared his throat and spoke into a bullhorn.
"Attention Senior Citizens of Pine Valley! Fun's over! Door's open! Hit the road!"
The confused Veterans milled around uncertainly until Ethan turned off the lights, heat and air, forcing them out into the early early morning Dump.
Kendall Hart Slater didn't move a muscle.
"You heard the man," Zach said to her, loving her with each and every fiber of his being. "Time to hit the road."
"Okay, let's hit it!" she replied, linking arms with her husband and joining the exiting throng.
From out of nowhere, Ethan blocked their path.
"Not so fast," he said, pointing a very large revolver pointblank at Zendall. "I've arranged a private party for you, Dad, in the next room."
"Kendall understands," Zach tried, but she wouldn't let go of him. "She'd never intrude on a private party."
"What?" she asked, loving Zach with each and every fiber of her being. "You mean to say I'm not invited to this wing-ding?"
Ethan cocked the revolver. "You know I want you at all my murders, Kendall."
"Swell," she said. "That settles it."
As far as Zach was concerned, however, nothing was settled.
"Kendall, I want you to go home with Erica and Jack," he directed her, waving at Erica and Jack to get their attention, which he didn't.
Ethan was fuming.
"You have until the count of three to sort yourselves out before I shoot you both right here, right now," he said darkly. "This isn't a game. This isn't a joke. This isn't a romantic comedy. This is murder most foul. I'm counting. One."
Kendall hugged Zach hard. "I won't leave you," she whispered desperately in his ear. "I can't leave you. Don't ask me to, Zach. It isn't fair!"
"Lovely, listen!" he implored her. "Whatever happens to me, it will be easier if I know you're safe. Besides, Ethan would never actually hurt me!"
"Two!" Ethan counted.
Zendall kissed each other like there was no tomorrow because there probably wasn't.
"Zach, I can't," she tried to make him understand. "I can't leave you here to die!"
"Lovely, please!" he begged her. "Whatever happened between us, Ethan is my son. He'd never intentionally --"
"You're lying, Zach!" Kendall cried out. "Ethan is going to kill you, and I can't live without you!"
That did it.
"Start walking before I drop both of you lovebirds right here," Ethan growled in lieu of saying 'three'.
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The second after Ryan began his climb to the second story of the Big Black Building in his search for an open window, below him the door opened with a crash and the Vanished began pouring out.
"I can't believe Ethan expects us to walk home!" he heard Erica exclaim. "It's thirty miles to town and I'm wearing stilettos! We're in the middle of the Dump, for heaven's sake! And what did he mean by that Senior Citizens of Pine Valley crack? Has he lost his mind?"
"Why didn't he let us call cabs?" he heard Opal continue to lament. "It's four o'clock in the morning, for pity's sake! It's pitch black out here! How are we supposed to see where in tarnation we're going? Myrt, don't let go of me or we'll both end up on our cabooses! Palmer, you hang on to Myrt's other arm!"
"Shut up, Opal," Palmer requested as he grabbed Myrtle's other arm. "How can we concentrate on getting the hell out of here with all your infernal jabbering?"
"I wouldn't dream of letting go of either of you, Dahlings," Myrtle assured them both. "But why do you suppose Ethan threw us out like that?"
"I don't know and I don't care," Marian pouted, holding onto Stuart for dear life as they gingerly stepped over heaps of refuse of every disgusting variety imaginable.
"At least he fed us first," Brooke said in Ethan's defense. "I wish it weren't so dark out here!"
"We'll be okay," Stuart tried to soothe them. "Look! I've got the flashlight I carry with me everywhere, and if everybody opens their cell phones, they'll be even more light!"
An amazed Ryan slid down the tattered rope he had found in the Dump and had used for his seemingly unnecessary climb. He pulled out his cell phone, opened it and squinted in the semi-darkness, trying to find Greenlee in the throng.
"You'll kill your batteries," an oh-so-familiar voice cautioned him.
And there she was, not two feet in front of him.
"I don't care about the batteries," he managed, racing to her and sweeping her into his arms.
"What do you care about, Ryan?" Greenlee asked him, having wondered about that for so long.
"You," he suddenly knew. "Only you! Always you! My Green Butterfly!"
Then he heard Erica's voice again.
"Jack, where's Kendall? Didn't she leave with us? She was talking to Ethan and Zach Slater! Kendall! Kendall, where are you?"
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Kendall was in a meat locker, just off the ballroom, standing next to her husband and step-son. Before them, suspended from a steel bar, swung two meat hooks.
"Remind you of anything, Kendall?" Ethan cooed.
"Maybe "Rocky"? Other than that, nothing I can --"
Zach refreshed her memory.
"You hung my brother Michael from a meat hook not unlike these."
"Your scum-of-the-earth-rapist brother Michael," she corrected him quietly.
Ethan nodded. "Be that as it may, this is how Uncle Michael ended up."
"And you're showing this to us because?" Kendall prompted him.
Ethan giggled.
"You'll never get away with it, Son," Zach felt compelled to say for the record. "People saw us at the party. They're bound to wonder how we ended up on meat hooks."
Ethan slapped Zach's confession/suicide note. "This should answer all their stupid questions and assuage all their nagging doubts."
"Nobody has ever committed suicide by hanging himself from a meat hook," Kendall was fairly certain.
"There's always a first time," Ethan reminded her. "Besides after the explosion your bodies will probably drop from the meat hooks and be cremated in the general incineration. They're not going to find much of either of you when the smoke finally clears."
That ended the debate for a few seconds.
Then Zach had a thought.
"You were supposed to let Kendall go. That was the deal. You never go back on your word, right?"
Ethan shrugged. "I didn't ask her to follow us in here. Your future widow has a mind of her own."
"There's still time," Zach said. "Let her go."
"Let us both go," Kendall suggested immediately. She blinked. "What explosion?"
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WHAT explosion? With Zendall in dire straights, who will save the day? Ryan? Tad? Derek? Lily? Erica? ANYBODY? Please return for our next thrilling chapter! (I promise nobody ends up in a coma!)